Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/48

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subsequently acquired property and earnings, to the husband are unjust in principle and injurious in their operation’ (ib. cxlii. 1273–1277, 1284). In the following session he both spoke and voted against the government on Cobden's China resolutions (ib. cxliv. 1457–63, 1847). On 14 May 1857 he brought in a bill to amend the law of property as it affected married women (ib. cxlv. 266–74), which was read a second time on 15 July, and subsequently dropped. He moved the second reading of Lord Campbell's bill for more effectually preventing the sale of obscene books and pictures (20 & 21 Vict. c. 83), and joined frequently in the discussion of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill in committee. Perry gave his hearty concurrence to the first reading of Lord Palmerston's Government of India Bill on 12 Feb. 1858 (ib. cxlviii. 1304–12), and supported the introduction of the Sale and Transfer of Land (Ireland) Bill on 4 May following (ib. cl. 40–1). He took a prominent part in the discussion in committee of the third Government of India Bill, and on the third reading of the bill declared his ‘solemn conviction that it would not last more than four or five years, and that in that time the council would probably be found unworkable’ (ib. cli. 1087–8). He spoke for the last time in the house on 19 July 1859, during the debate on the organisation of the Indian army, when he insisted that ‘in future the government of India must be more congenial to the feelings and wishes of the people’ (ib. clv. 40–4). Shortly after Lord Palmerston's reinstatement in office Perry was appointed a member of the council of India (8 Aug. 1859). On his resignation of this post, a few months before his death, the queen gave her approval to his admission to the privy council. He was, however, too ill to be sworn in. He died at his residence in Eaton Place, London, on 22 April 1882, aged 75.

Perry married, first, in 1834, Louisa, only child of James M'Elkiney of Brighton, and a niece of Madame Jérôme Bonaparte; she died at Byculla on 12 Oct. 1841. He married, secondly, on 6 June 1855, Elizabeth Margaret, second daughter of Sir John Van den Bempde-Johnstone, bart., and sister of Harcourt, first lord Derwent, who still survives.

Perry wrote: 1. ‘Letter to Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of England, on Reforms in the Common Law; with a Letter to the Government of India on the same subject, &c.,’ London, 1850, 8vo. 2. ‘Cases illustrative of Oriental Life and the application of English Law to India decided in H. M. Supreme Court at Bombay,’ London, 1853, 8vo. 3. ‘A Bird's-eye View of India, with Extracts from a Journal kept in the provinces, Nepal,’ &c., London, 1855, 8vo. He translated Savigny's ‘Treatise on Possession, or the Jus Possessionis of the Civil Law,’ London, 1848, 8vo, and wrote an introduction to ‘Two Hindus on English Education … Prize Essays by Náráyan Bhai and Bkáskar Dámodar of the Elphinstone Institution, Bombay,’ Bombay, 1852, 8vo. He also contributed a ‘Notice of Anquetil du Perron and the Fire Worshippers of India’ and ‘the Van den Bempde Papers’ to the ‘Biographical and Historical Miscellanies’ of the Philobiblon Society, and an article of his on ‘The Future of India’ appeared in the ‘Nineteenth Century’ for December 1878 (iv. 1083–1104).

[New Monthly Magazine, cxvii. 382–91 (with portrait); Law Magazine and Review, 4th ser. vii. 436; Law Journal, xvii. 234; Solicitors' Journal, xxvi. 438; Times, 12 Jan. and 24 April 1882; Illustrated London News, 29 April 1882; Men of the Time, 10th edit. 1879; Dod's Peerage, &c., 1882; McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book, 1879, pp. 47, 72, 155, 164; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 414, 431, 446; Whishaw's Synopsis of the Bar, 1835, pp. 108–9; Grad. Cantabr. 1856, p. 298; Parish's List of Carthusians, 1879, p. 182; Lincoln's Inn and Inner Temple Registers; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. vii. 287; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

G. F. R. B.

PERRYN, Sir RICHARD (1723–1803), baron of the exchequer, son of Benjamin Perryn of Flint, merchant, by his wife, Jane, eldest daughter of Richard Adams, town clerk of Chester, was baptised in the parish church of Flint on 16 Aug. 1723. He was educated at Ruthin grammar school and Queen's College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 13 March 1741, but did not take any degree. He was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 6 Nov. 1740, and on 27 April 1746 migrated to the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar on 3 July 1747. Perryn commenced practice in the court of chancery, and gradually acquired such a reputation there as to be employed during the latter years of his practice in almost every cause. On 20 July 1770 he became vice-chamberlain of Chester (Ormerod, History of Cheshire, 1882, i. 61), and in the same year was made a king's counsel and a bencher of the Inner Temple. On 6 April 1776 he kissed hands on his appointment as baron of the exchequer in the place of Sir John Burland, and was knighted on the same day (London Gazette, 1776, No. 11654). He was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law and sworn into office on the 26th of the same month (Blackstone, Reports, 1781, ii.